Medicine: How to Fight Radicals

Los Angeles came down last week with the worst case of that chronic big-city ailment, smog. Though usually its immediate effects are only smarting eyes and sore throats, smog can have serious indirect consequences, including traffic accidents, respiratory trouble, possible (though not proved) influence on lung cancer. Scientists measure the strength of a smog bout by the amount of ozone in the air. If the ozone count ever reaches 1.5 parts per million, public health officials fear disaster. The Los Angeles smog last week reached 0.90. California’s Governor Goodwin Knight stood ready to declare the city a disaster area, and to proclaim martial law.

The Los Angeles Times managed a wry smile in a cartoon that showed Paul Chabas’ famed September Morn adapted to local conditions (see cut). But smog had stopped being a joke. City health officials banned use of Los Angeles’ millions of backyard incinerators, except on weekend mornings. If the smog got worse, they planned to shut down all refineries, possibly halt the sale of gasoline, to stop air contamination. But scientists are not sure just how the air is contaminated. While greyed-out Los Angeles was doing battle, a Minneapolis meeting of smog fighters from all over the U.S. suggested that smog irritation may not be caused by the obviously suspect fumes from exhaust pipes and smoke stacks. The theory: combustion in power plants and all types of engines throws hundreds of tons of nitrogen oxides into the air, along with hydrocarbon compounds. The oxides absorb energy from sunlight, which enables them to turn hydrocarbon compounds into what chemists call “free radicals,” i.e., fragments of molecules free to form new chemical compounds. Possible result: rare chemicals in the air never suspected in smog.

How to fight those radicals? Los Angeles public health officials could suggest only stopgap measures: 1) see a doctor if eyes or throat are severely irritated, 2) bathe eyes with eye drops, 3) visit a friend who has air conditioning, or go to a movie, 4) relax so as to breathe less.